Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriot (7 page)

Snake was struck by a suspicion.

“And the Patriots are involved?”

“La li lu le lo? What’s la li lu le lo?”

Word protection.

Her nanomachines were censoring him, interfering with her ability to hear what he said. Snake had seen this before—in the Manhattan Incident, he’d run into people under Patriot control who couldn’t speak the group’s name. When they tried, the word only came out in the gibberish phrase
la li lu le lo
.

Snake sighed. “Never mind. So this System is foolproof, huh?”

“Completely. They call it SOP.”

“Standard Operating Procedure …”

“No. Short for ‘Sons of the …’ It’s the network that monitors soldiers.”

Sons of the Patriots.

Meryl continued. “The AI that controls it is a tightly guarded secret—both at ArmsTech Security, where it was developed, and at the Pentagon. There’s no way a third party could get control of it.”

“I just met a guy who said he could launder ID guns. The System does have holes …”

“There can’t be more than a few hundred of those gun launderers. They’re a grassroots organization. It’s not like they can affect the entire PMC war machine.”

“And Liquid won’t be able to make use of his military forces?”

Meryl nodded. “His PMCs might even exceed the US military in terms of numbers. But as long as they’re registered, their troops’ activities are constantly being monitored. So long as the US responds immediately when Liquid makes his move, we can take them down by force.”

Snake grinned wryly.
By force, huh? Typical thinking for someone in the US military
, Snake clearly thought—but didn’t say. I knew that smile though. What he did say was this: “How did you get involved?”

“When Army Special Operations Command heard about Liquid’s plans, they sent us to sniff around the PMCs. Took us three months to find him. When we reported that we’d found Liquid, our superiors ordered us to provide the UN investigators with intel. But I didn’t know it’d be you.”

“Didn’t the colonel tell you he was sending me?”

“Colonel?” Waves of barely restrained hatred stirred her composed expression. “Don’t tell me it’s Campbell.”

“You didn’t know?”

“You’ve got to be kidding! You expect me to work with my uncle?” Meryl stood and paced around, kicking chairs, cursing—no longer attempting to hide her anger.

“Meryl, calm down.”

“This is bullshit! He’s not my father!”

Snake was at a loss for words.
She knows. She knows whose blood flows through her. Whose genes she inherited.

Meryl considered her father a curse. Husbands and wives can choose their spouses, but children can’t choose their parents. I guess that can be a kind of curse, even though most are lucky enough never to have to think of it that way.

But Snake and Meryl weren’t lucky. Just as Snake hadn’t chosen to be born as Big Boss’s clone, she hadn’t chosen to be born Campbell’s daughter.

“So,” said Snake, “you knew?”

“Yeah. Little violation of the need-to-know rule.”

That unnatural calm had returned to her voice. Amid the nearby PMC and rebel gunfire, nothing was a bigger disturbance to a unit than its commander losing herself in a fit of anger. Still, Snake couldn’t help but abhor those nanomachines for suppressing her real and valid anger.

“Then why are you still calling him uncle?”

“You’re still calling him colonel.”

“He’s your father.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re still uncle and niece. I’ll never forgive that womanizing piece of shit.”

That was going too far. Snake shook his head. “Meryl, he’s—”

“He remarried.”

“The colonel remarried?” Snake reeled in shock, likely chastising himself that now, with life and death and the fate of the world on the line, was not the right time or place for all this small talk of cheating and remarriage.

Meryl’s subordinates—Johnny, the burly African-American sniper Ed, and the giant mohawked Jonathan—were clearly uncomfortable, doing anything they could—inspecting their weapons and electronics, feigning sleep—not to look at the two.

“His new wife’s about my age,” Meryl said. “I hear she’s even got a kid. It’s as if he’s given up on making up with his own daughter. Men. Selfish, egotistical pigs.”

Snake’s expression reflected guilt, as if she were accusing him. Which she probably was.

He changed the subject. “Where is Liquid now?”

Meryl suspiciously eyed the man who was working for the father she hated and said, “Liquid’s camp is up ahead. I’ll mark it on your map.”

4

From the skies above the abandoned city, the giant birdlike Sliders—part tactical strike bombers, part mobile advertisements—tirelessly blasted out their promotional messages.
We hope you’ll consider the Praying Mantis solution for all your future combat needs
. Staying out of the sight of PMC and militia ground forces was no longer enough for Snake—now he had to watch the skies. Carefully, he made his way toward the location Meryl gave him.

The closer he advanced, the thicker the PMC patrols became. Before long, the passing of armored vehicles became frequent. The PMC headquarters must have been larger and more fortified than we’d anticipated. Snake made a few adjustments on his muscle suit and enabled its camouflage. He’d need more than his own stealth to go any farther.

The OctoCamo system scanned Snake’s surroundings and copied them across its surface.

The OctoCamo couldn’t make Snake completely invisible like the Mk. II’s stealth camouflage, but—much like an octopus’s natural camouflage—the suit could read the surfaces around Snake and perfectly emulate them, providing Snake the edge he needed to stay out of sight.

The PMC stronghold was located in what used to be the city’s administration complex. The building, a boxy structure surrounded by a sizable wall, looked like about what you’d expect from a government office—a healthy mix of authoritarianism and austerity. Easy to defend and hard to assault, the complex even contained a generously sized parking lot. All in all, the facility was well suited for military purposes.

Snake went prone upon the gravel, and his camouflage shifted to blend in. Slowly, he crawled through the open streets like an inchworm. The area outside the base provided no cover, but Snake, utilizing Native American tracking techniques, gave the soldiers nothing to see and nothing to hear.

Of course the OctoCamo was a major factor of his success, but Snake’s sense of his connection with the world around him was even more crucial. He was a part of his surroundings, a part of the world. By closely matching himself in with that baseline, he could be more stealthy than what might seem possible.

With his senses attuned to the environment around him, Snake easily got inside the wall. Inside, neat rows of tents and transport vehicles provided better cover than outside the complex. This clearly was a command post—soldiers busily went about their duties, and compared to the patrols outside, they were far less alert.

It was always dark below the lighthouse, Snake knew.

The soldiers inside shouted at each other instead of using the wireless, providing a level of background noise sufficient that Snake didn’t even have to worry about keeping quiet.

A Canard VTOL craft flew overhead with a thunderous roar. Snake’s attention was drawn skyward, and then he saw the lone man standing on the roof.

A man with long gray hair. Even with sunglasses on, his face was unmistakable.

The man once known as Revolver Ocelot.

Now known as Liquid Snake.

But what should he be called, really?

At the Manhattan Incident, he’d called himself Liquid—the right arm, transplanted into another’s body, awakened.

Was that even possible?

There had to be a better explanation.

When he confronted Ocelot in the sinking tanker off the coast of Manhattan, Snake had felt Liquid’s presence in the man.

After the events at Shadow Moses and the spreading of Metal Gear technology throughout the world, Snake and I founded Philanthropy, an anti-Metal Gear organization. We monitored nuclear powers for any signs they were developing new Metal Gears. After receiving intel that the US Marine Corps was smuggling an anti-Metal Gear Metal Gear, RAY, inside a decoy oil tanker, Snake intercepted and infiltrated the ship in the Hudson Bay. He intended to get photographic evidence of the Metal Gear, which I would then leak to the Internet and reveal their secret to the world.

We were beaten to the weapon by Russian mercenaries intent on stealing it for themselves. The group was led by Colonel Sergei Gurlukovich, former head of the Spetznaz GRU and the father of Olga Gurlukovich—making him Sunny’s grandfather.

Sergei successfully seized the tanker but lost his life when he was betrayed by a member of his forces. Betrayal might not be the right word, because Ocelot, who’d escaped Shadow Moses and left FOXHOUND, had only joined Sergei to spy on behalf of the Patriots.

That’s how our paths crossed with him once more. There, as Ocelot’s explosives doomed the ship, Snake saw Ocelot the man cease to exist. Though Ocelot struggled to resist the transplanted right arm, in the end, Liquid took complete control of his body. The man who stole Metal Gear RAY and successfully escaped the sinking vessel wasn’t anyone if not Liquid Snake. Two years later, when the president was kidnapped and we faced Ocelot again, Liquid had taken full control.

The man was both Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot.

And now that man, unmistakably, stood atop the government building.

“I knew it.”

Meryl’s voice came over Snake’s cochlear-implant radio. He dropped to one knee and quickly scanned the area for her squad, spotting them within cover in a concealed corner of the complex.

“Snake, you’re here to kill Liquid, aren’t you?”

“That’s the mission. Are you going to stop me?”

“My mission,” Meryl said, “is to inspect the PMCs. I’m not in a position to take action. All I can do is stand by and watch.”

Whether by her own decision or orders from ARSOC, this was a tacit consent from the US Army.

“I can’t help you,” she said. “Understand? I’m a peacekeeper, here to keep order.”

“Understood.”

Snake cut the transmission and gave Meryl a small wave. She hesitated, dropping her eyes for a moment, then motioned her unit to move on.

Liquid seemed to be talking over his wireless. He was positioned where he could look down over the courtyard, where his employees, the PMC soldiers, were going about their various duties, transporting equipment and forming ranks.

Even Snake would likely not have been able to cut through their masses, but he could at least move a little closer to where he could better observe Liquid. Snake stood and carefully advanced.

Then the world fell apart.

His chest felt like it was being crushed. Blinking, breathing, every act of simply staying alive brought an avalanche of pain cascading upon him. He felt like his thoughts and awareness, and everything that made up his consciousness, were completely shut off from himself. He had only made it a single step forward, and from there, he could no longer move.

Snake’s very steps told the story.
So, this is how it is. My end has come.
Old age has brought an end to my tired life.

Is this as far as I go? Is this really it?

Snake struggled to retain his consciousness. He fought against the crumbling world with everything he had. At the edges of his awareness, the other soldiers shared in the agony. They were all around him, some convulsing on the ground, others frothing at the mouth, a few shitting themselves uncontrollably, and on and on.

Snake looked for Meryl’s squad. Ed, Jonathan, and Meryl had collapsed with their hands clutched at their heads. Only Akiba seemed unaffected, helplessly watching his comrades suffer.

Snake gritted his teeth. “It’s not over. I can’t fall here. Not yet,” he told himself. “I cannot leave my fate, my curse, to Meryl and Sunny’s generation. After I finish what I must, then I will happily die. But not now. I still must fight.”